You've already seen that there is a big chance to become the king of the world by starting as a modest and cheap startup. The same situation happened with HP. What HP is? I guess I don't have to explain it to anyone, because I am sure that everyone know Hewlett-Packard printers and other ICT equipment made by that company.
HP was "opened" in January 1939 in the garage in Palo Alto, California. Its funders - Bill Hewlett and David Packard - graduated Stanford University with degree in electricial engineering. They started part-time work in a rented garage and at the beginning of 1939 they decided to formalize their partnership. They couldn't decide, whether their company should be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett, so they decide to solve that issue by tossing a coin. I guess we all know the result now.
Their first financialy succesful product was HP200A - audio osculator. They were selling the 200A model for $89 while their competitiors were selling worse products for about $200. One of the earliest customers was Walt Disney Production.
In 1960s' they created in Japan partnership with Sony and Yokogawa Electric to develop few high-quality products. In 1963 HP and Yokogawa formed a joint venture to introduce HP products in Japan. Later, in 1999, HP bought Yokogawa Electric's share of Japanese Hewlett Packard industry. The company earned global respect for a variety of products in 1970. They introduced the world's first handhandled scientific electronic calculator, in 1972.
In 1984, HP introduced inkjet and laser printers, as well as scanners for desktop. All of these have later been developed into succesful multifunctional products. On March 3, in 1986, they registered HP.com domain name and later, on September 2, 2001 - HP announced that an angreement had been drawn with Compaq, to merge these two companies and they officially did it in May, 2002. The aim of that action, was to consolidate product team and product lines. The company unveiled several new products in 2006. In that group we might include desktops, a workstation, and appropriate software used to manage them.
Hewlett-Packard company events included the spin-off of its electronic and bio-analytical measurement instruments part of its business as Agilent Technologies in 1999, its merger with Compaq in 2002, and the aquisition of EDS in 2008, which led to combined revenues of 118.4 billion. In November 2009, HP announced the acqusition of 3Con with the deal closing on April, 2010. On 28 April 2010, HP announced the buyout of Palm Inc. for $1.2 billion. On 2 September 2010, HP won its bidding war for 3PAR with a $33 a share offer ($2.07 billion), which Dell declined to match.
Hewlett-Packard split the PC and printers business from its enterprise products and services business on November 1, 2015, resulting in two publicity traded companies: HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In 2017, Hewlett Packard Enterprise spin-off its Enterprises Services division as DXC Technology and its Software division to Micro Focus.
